CHAIM
POTOK, 73: Novelist Chaim Potok, who had been ill with cancer
for some time, died at his home in Pennsylvania Tuesday. "Mr.
Potok came to international prominence in 1967 with his debut
novel, The Chosen (Simon & Schuster). Unlike the work
of the novelists Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, which dealt largely
with the neuroses of assimilated secular Jews, The Chosen
was the first American novel to make the fervent, insular Hasidic
world visible to a wide audience." The
New York Times 07/24/02

NEW
DIRECTION: "The National Museum of Women in the Arts
announced its fifth director in as many years yesterday, naming
American art scholar Judy L. Larson to the post. Larson is a former
curator at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta and has been executive
director of the Art Museum of Western Virginia in Roanoke since
1998. The NMWA job has been vacant since October, when Ellen Reeder
resigned after three months. Larson will assume her duties in
September." Washington Post
07/24/02

Tuesday
July 23

ALL
ABOUT THE STORIES: At 36, David McVicar is "widely ranked
the hottest talent on the international opera circuit; and his
special genius is for telling stories on a big scale but with
clarity and focus. At a time when opera staging seems in danger
of abandoning narrative responsibility in favour of interpretative
fancy - the bourgeois-battering aesthetic of Figaros set on futuristic
rubbish dumps and Don Giovannis on a slip-road to the M6 - McVicar
has emerged as something like a champion of old-fashioned values."
The Telegraph (UK) 07/23/02

Sunday
July 21

NOT
ALL RICH PEOPLE ARE JERKS: "Eli Broad is one of the richest
people in America: His $5.2 billion fortune places him at No.
51 on this year's Forbes magazine list. He is also one of the
nation's most charitable individuals: The Chronicle of Philanthropy
ranked him No. 5 last year, when he gave away more than $387 million.
And he's one of the world's greatest art collectors: The current
Artnews list puts him in the top 10. Another collector might build
a Broad Museum. But this entrepreneur, who gives far more to public
school causes than he spends on art, has instead created a ''lending
library'' of the contemporary work that is his focus."Boston Globe 07/21/02

SEYMOUR
SOLOMON, 80: "Seymour Solomon, who with his brother,
Maynard, founded Vanguard Records in 1950 and turned it into the
dominant label for American folk music, recording such artists
as Joan Baez, Odetta, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Ian & Sylvia, died
yesterday at his summer home in Lenox, Mass." The
New York Times 07/20/02

ALAN
LOMAX, 87: "Alan Lomax, the celebrated musicologist who
helped preserve America's and the world's heritage by making thousands
of recordings of folk, blues and jazz musicians from the 1930s
onward, died Friday in Florida. He was 87." Calgary
Herald 07/21/02

RESTLESS
IN PORTLAND: Some people just aren't meant to stay in one
place for too long. Such was the case last winter when James Canfield,
the 42-year-old Joffrey alum and choreographer of the Oregon Ballet
Theater, called his most senior dancers to his office and announced
to them his intention to step down from the company. Canfield
has built the OBT into one of the nation's respected ballet troupes,
and was certainly facing no pressure to move on, but he described
a restlessness that has become a familiar theme in his professional
life, one that has almost always resulted in a career move. What's
next for Canfield is uncertain, but there is no doubt that there
will be a next. The New York Times
07/21/02

POTS
AND KETTLES AND THE LITTLE TRAMP: A cynic might be forgiven
for asking where a bunch of folks with the questionable moral
history of the British royal family gets off making value judgments
on the personal lives of others, but new documents demonstrate
that the royals blocked Charlie Chaplin from knighthood for decades
after controversial aspects of his personal life surfaced. Chaplin's
marriages to underage teenagers and open membership in the Communist
party in the age of the blacklist kept him from knighthood for
nearly a quarter century. BBC 07/21/02

Friday
July 19

AUSTRALIA'S
GREATEST DANCER: Russell Page was only 33 when he died suddenly
this week. Thursday he was eulogized as "perhaps the most
talented dancer Australia has produced, skilled in both the old
traditional dances and contemporary forms." A fiery principal
dance with Bangarra Dance Theatre "Page was an amateur daredevil
and a truly 'deadly'footballer, often sneaking off from dance
practice to play touch footy with Redfern's street kids."
Sydney Morning Herald 07/19/02

LOOKING
TOWARDS HOME: James Conlon is that rarest of all musical beasts:
an American conductor with a global profile and the trust of European
musicians. Conlon, who left America for Europe two decades ago
after surmising that American orchestras do not like to hire American
music directors, is looking to come home as his tenure in Cologne
and Paris comes to an end. Rumor has him at the top of the list
of candidates to succeed Christoph Eschenbach as music director
of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's summer festival at Ravinia,
but Conlon is likely to have many options for employment the minute
he makes his return to America official. Chicago
Sun-Times 07/18/02

Thursday
July 18

BILBAO-ON-HIDSON
CHOOSES DIRECTOR: Jonathan Levi has been chosen as director
of the new $62 million Bard Performing Arts Center. The center,
designed by Frank Gehry, "is to be completed in January and
open in April as a home for music, theater and dance. The building's
two theaters will be used both for academic purposes and as a
public space for international cultural events. Like the Guggenheim
Museum that Mr. Gehry designed in Bilbao, Spain, the Bard center
is highly distinctive with a series of low-lying steel canopies
that look like large, overlapping ribbons." The
New York Times 07/18/02

Tuesday
July 16

NOT
PRODUCING: Henry Goodman was the victim of one of the most
public firings in Broadway history when he was removed as Nathan
Lane's replacement in The Producers last spring. So what
happened? Personally, I think they blew it. Of course theyd
say, No, no Henry, you blew it. I just wanted the
freedom to deepen my character, make him darker, more like Zero
Mostel (who played the part in the original 1968 film). Just look
at these letters  he chucks down a sheaf of fan mail
 the bookings were fine. The fact is, 60,000 people
saw me and no one asked for their money back. But they wanted
a clone of Nathan and I wasnt prepared to give them that.
The Times (UK) 07/16/02

Monday
July 15

YOUSUF
KARSH, 93: The Canadian photographer died in Boston of complications
resulting from an operation for diverticulitis. "The formal
portrait photographer, whose lens captured the who's-who of the
20th century, sold or donated all 355,000 of his negatives to
the National Archives in Ottawa and they will form the core collection
of the Portrait Gallery of Canada, which is to open in 2005 across
the street from Parliament Hill." Toronto
Star 07/15/02

CHOREOGRAPHER
KILLED: Noted Russian choreographer Yevgeny Panifilov was
found stabbed to death in his apartment. "Panfilov, 47, became
popular in the early 1980s when he was among the first to create
a Russian modern dance group. He was particularly well known for
his choreography of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet, which has
been performed in major Russian theaters and around the world
under his direction." Nando Times
(AP) 07/15/02

Sunday
July 14

GONE
NATIVE: The arts world and the larger capitalistic society
understandably view one another with skepticism, and sometimes
outright hostlity, and the best way to make an artist nervous
is to put a businessman in charge of his fiscal affairs. Such
was the case when Gerry Robinson was persuaded to take on the
leadership of the Arts Council of England, with the hope being
that he could use his business savvy to streamline the council's
operations. Four years in, Robinson has done just that, but the
council appears to have had as much impact on him as he has had
on it: "Like many arts ministers and Arts Council chairmen
before him, Robinson has gone native, and is quite prepared to
admit the fact. He now talks the arts talk with total conviction,
effortlessly embracing both the social importance of the arts...
and the pursuit of excellence." Financial
Times 07/12/02

LIBESKIND
SPEAKS: The architect of the new Jewish Museum in Berlin explains
his vision of what makes for good architecture in the modern world.
"Buildings provide spaces for living, but are also de facto
instruments, giving shape to the sound of the world. Music and
architecture are related not only by metaphor, but also through
concrete space." The Guardian
(UK) 07/13/02

A
GROUNDBREAKER LOOKS BACK: James DePriest faced more than the
average number of roadblocks to becoming a successful conductor.
He has polio, and must walk with braces and canes. He has kidney
disease, and required a transplant last year. And he is black,
which is still a shockingly rare thing to be in the world of classical
music. Nonetheless, DePriest has achieved great success on the
podium, and is preparing to step down as music director of the
Oregon Symphony after nearly a quarter century.Andante (AP) 07/14/02

Friday
July 12

FINAL
COPY: The head of Australia's largest university has been
forced to resign after multiple claims that he plagiarized. David
Robinson, the embattled vice-chancellor of Monash University,
quit after being summoned back from a trip to London. "He
could see he was creating damage for the university. The only
solution that he could see, and I could see, and we came to this
together, was to leave." The
Age (Melbourne) 07/12/02

Thursday
July 11

WOULDN'T
YOU LIKE TO BE A SPANNER TOO: C-Span founder and host Brian
Lamb has a cult following among viewers known as "Spanners"
for their devotion to the cable network. "Lamb is open to
interpretations of himself - the solemn ones, mocking ones, camp
ones. He'll play along. He is resigned to his celebrity niche.
He has been called the most boring and the most trusted man in
America, both of which he would take as a source of pride, or,
at least, humor." Washington
Post 07/12/02

JESSYE'S
ROUGH NIGHT: Sopranos can rarely sing at a high level up to
their 60th birthday. Jessye Norman is 56, and her first recital
at Tanglewood in years was a disaster this week. Clearly not in
good voice, she cut short her program, then "mouthed the
words 'I'm sorry' as she swept from the stage after singing excerpts
from Berlioz's Les Nuits d'ete.'' Boston
Globe 07/11/02

Wednesday
July 10

JACKO'S
CRUSADE: Michael Jackson's tirade against the recording industry
for being unfair to artists, particularly black artists, seems
a stretch, given the mega-bucks he's made in his career. Last
weekend he said that "the recording companies really, really
do conspire against the artists. They steal, they cheat, they
do everything they can, [especially] against the black artists."
But Jackson has been locked in a dispute with his recording label,
and his career hasn't been going well... Philadelphia
Inquirer 07/10/02

STRIKE
OUT: Outgoing Boston Symphony conductor Seiji Ozawa is a big
baseball fan. So when the orchestra was planning his farewell,
Ozawa suggested a final concert at Fenway Park, home of the Boston
Red Sox. Sure, said the orchestra, and quickly negotiated a date
with the ballclub. But then the numbers came in - it would cost
"at least $500,000 to build staging, a sound system, and
other support for the show." So the plans were abandoned.
Boston Globe 07/10/02

Tuesday
July 9

COMMITTED:
Alberto Vilar is "believed to give more money to opera than
any other donor in the world, and he is one of the top givers
to the arts in general, as well. His gifts include a total of
$33 million to New York's Metropolitan Opera, $10 million to Los
Angeles Opera, and $50 million to Washington, D.C.'s John F. Kennedy
Center for the Performing Arts. But since late last year - when
Vilar was laid up with medical problems and his company was laid
low by the downturn in the stock market - rumors and press reports
that he is not honoring his pledges to the arts have surfaced
in the United States and Europe." Los
Angeles Times 07/09/02

Monday
July 8

STUDYING
THE STUDIERS: Intellectual historians sometimes grumble that
their peers don't regard them as doing "real" history.
After all, they study books and ideas, rather than digging around
in archives to chart the course of wars and revolutions, or the
almost-unreconstructible life of, say, an Aztec peasant. Tony
Grafton works on old, dead classicists. How much less-sexy can
you get? And yet his work is read not only by medievalists and
Renaissance scholars, but by a general audience as well."
Chronicle of Higher Education 07/08/02

MICHAEL
JACKSON VS PRODUCERS: Michael Jackson has joined the list
of pop artists charging that recording companies take advantage
of musicians. But he adds a racial element to the complaints.
"The record companies really do conspire against the artists.
Especially the black artists." Los
Angeles Times 07/07/02

Sunday
July 7

JOHN
FRANKENHEIMER, 72: Hollywood director John Frankenheimer,
famous for his tales of political intrigue and dark conspiracies,
has died. His films included Seven Days In May and The
Manchurian Candidate. The New
York Times 07/07/02

Thursday
July 4

HARVARD'S
LOSS: James Cuno's departure as director of the Harvard Museums
to become director of the Courtauld Institute is "certainly
not glad tidings for Harvard, with its famously ambivalent attitude
toward art, especially of the contemporary sort that Cuno has
championed. There is fear now that the progress Cuno has made
will halt or even be reversed, that his agenda - including plans
for a new Renzo Piano -designed museum on the banks of the Charles
- will unravel." Boston Globe
07/03/02

Wednesday
July 3

RAY
BROWN, 75: One of the most influential jazz musicians of the
20th century has died. Bassist Ray Brown revolutionized his instrument's
role in jazz, and was one of the creators of bebop. He played
with nearly every legend of the genre and was a founding member
of the Oscar Peterson Trio. He was still performing at the age
of 75, and was finishing up a U.S. tour at the time of his death
yesterday. Nando Times (AP) 07/03/02

BETTER
LATE THAN NEVER: Katherine Dunham's name has never been as
immediately recognizable as Martha Graham's, but the 93-year-old
dancer/choreographer has contributed arguably as much as Graham
to the world of dance. An innovative choreographer, a quietly
political crusader, and a devoted student of African and Western
dance traditions, Dunham is finally starting to gain the recognition
many aficionados feel she has long been deserving of. Boston
Globe 07/03/02

FALLEN
FROM GRACE, AND BITTER AS HELL: Time was in Hollywood when
you couldn't make a move (or a movie) without Michael Ovitz's
say-so. But today, Ovitz is a bitter and broken man, a few years
removed from his embarrassing ouster at Disney, and smarting from
the collapse of his once-dominant talent agency. Ovitz is lashing
out in a soon-to-be-published interview in Vanity Fair,
claiming, among other things, that a Hollywood "gay mafia"
is responsible for his downfall. The
New York Times 07/03/02

Tuesday
July 2

WINKING
AT THE TAX MAN: Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski is being investigated
for tax evasion on purchases of art he bought but for which he
didn't pay sales tax, claiming that the work was being shipped
out of New York. What gave him away? "Investigators had obtained
a fax which listed some of the paintings that were being shipped
to New Hampshire with the words 'wink wink' in parentheses, indicating
that the objects were not going to New Hampshire but were instead
going to Mr Kozlowskis New York address." The
Art Newspaper 06/30/02

Monday
July 1

PICTURING
BARYSHNIKOV: A new book tells dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov life
in pictures. But first he talks about a long career. "In
this country, there's so much dance, so much talent, so much choice.
American tradition of entertainment is very strong. We are entertainers,
you know, and there's nothing wrong with that." The
Plain Dealer 07/01/02